Category Archives: HeroMachine 3

All right, I admit it -- Damien and Fabien (brothers, mayhap?!) were right and I was wrong. There actually were more colors in HM2.5 than were in the beta, which clearly is unacceptable. So I spent most of the day on Sunday redoing the color palette to match the one in 2.5 and have posted the updated version to the HM3 Alpha page.

The colors now are arranged in the classic cascading rainbow gradient like you'd see in most commercial image manipulation applications. I added on a few metallic colors at the end for good measure. Plus, you still have the 25 dedicated skin tone colors at the end separated out into their own rows for ease of use.

If there are colors you wanted to see but don't, let me know.

With thanks to Damien for reminding me it needed work, I've reorganized the color swatch layout for the HM3 Alpha. They're now in Roy G. Biv order, except for browns and skin tones after, and grayscale before.

You'll note that the last four rows look awfully similar. I'm open to suggestions for replacement colors to take up at least one of those four rows (which are basically repeats of the skin tones). I do want probably a whole row of browns in addition to the skin tones, for leather and such. But that leaves a lot of others to fill.

Damien has pointed out that the arrangement of the color swatches in HM3 lacks something. Specifically, it lacks a coherent order. If someone wants to take the set of colors and arrange them in a way that makes more sense, I'd appreciate it. I suck at that kind of thing, but I'll take a crack at it if no one else wants to. Complete list for ease of cutting-and-pasting after the jump.

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I've just updated the HeroMachine 3 Alpha with the "LegwearMaleStandard" set of items. All of the basic items from HeroMachine 2.0's Pants set are there, plus a bunch. Some of the more esoteric suggestions from the last thread will have to wait for specialized sets, but I've got them written down. I wanted to get the basics in first. Holler if you see anything egregious missing.

I hope you like them! Just as a teaser, here's a set of four items from the HeroMachine 2.0 Pants-Standard genre side-by-side with their new versions in the HeroMachine 3.0 LegwearMaleStandard set:

I am currently drawing new Pants for HM3 (to be known as "Legwear"). Post any requests you have for pants-like items.

Thanks to subtle reminders, I've added a dark and a light web pattern to the HM3 Alpha. I also changed the interface so that when you delete an item in a slot, you stay in that slot.

And with that I hopefully am out of "pattern" puns. In any event, I've just posted an update to the HeroMachine 3 Alpha (use the "HM 3 Preview" button in the header) that includes 24 new semi-transparent patterns in addition to the 8 the program already had. The complete list of patterns is now:

• hex
• scales
• rivets/dots
• camo
• fishnet
• dirt/blood
• banded metal
• circuits
• tiger stripes (not entirely happy with this one, it may change)
• cheetah spots
• leather/squiggly bits
• hair
• chainmail links
• tartan
• cracked earth/rock
• bandages
• vertical narrow light stripes
• vertical thick light stripes
• vertical narrow dark stripes
• vertical thick dark stripes
• horizontal narrow light stripes
• horizontal thick light stripes
• horizontal narrow dark stripes
• horizontal thick dark stripes
• stars
• hearts
• checkerboard
• stylized flames
• electrical arcs
• dark smoke
• light smoke
• starfield

That's probably going to be it, because there are now enough objects in the basic shell app that it's starting to slow down. I think Flash CS3 has a problem when you put too many things in the library, it really slows to a crawl. If I add too much more it's going to be really irritating to work on.

In addition to those 32 built-in grayscale patterns, there is now a "Patterns" slot with one set of items, "Standard". The items in this set are just like any other items in that they can be colored, sized, rotated, etc. To get the effect, load up the item you want to be filled with the colorable pattern. Then load the pattern, click "Mask", and click on the target item to be filled. Just like any other masking effect.

The nice thing about that is you can, for instance, have blue stars with a sprinkling of yellow ones filling a dark blue body. Or red and orange flames scaled to size to fill a deep red body, making it look like he's full of fire. With the integrated grayscale patterns you can't do that, you have to rely on the color of the original item to carry off the effect.

Here's a sample of what I mean, with the "loaded as an item, colored, and masked" effect on the left and the "just use the built-in grayscale pattern" on the right:

Should I keep both the integrated patterns and the loadable, colorable set? One or the other? Neither?

I'd like to have a LOT more patterns in HeroMachine 3 than the minis had, to the point that you'll have a set of basic clothing options in the various slots that you can then turn into chainmail or full of lightning or Scottish tartan or whatever. Here's the list I have so far, let me know any additions or deletions you might have:

• zebra
• leopard
• cheetah
• tiger stripe
• fur
• leather
• stone
• metallic
• cement
• rusted/dirty
• hexes
• scales
• rivets
• camo
• fishnet
• banded armor
• cracked earth
• chainmail
• stripes - horizontal
• stripes - vertical
• circuits
• stars
• checkerboard
• webs
• bark/wood
• crystalline/icy
• flames
• lightning
• reptile skin (gradient filled tight circles)
• paisleys
• smoke
• tartan